Mac Power Users 426: Workflows with Andy Ihnatko

Writer, photographer, geek, and all-around nice guy Andy Ihnatko joins us this week, while Katie attempts to avoid electrocution.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

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CarPlay’s Unsurprising Success

Strategy Analytics released a report explaining how happy car owners are with Apple CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto in their vehicles. This is hardly shocking.

Several months ago I put an after-market CarPlay device in my Ford and it is better than Ford’s previous built-in system in literally every way. When it comes to placing the air conditioner knob on the dashboard, car manufacturers are aces. However, they have never been good at operating systems and user interface design. Apple and Google both have people that are far better at that issue than anyone working for a car company and it shows.

With CarPlay the voice commands actually work and my iPhone operates as the brains for my dashboard giving me better maps, better audio, and the ability to listen to text messages without me taking my eyes off the road. Since installing CarPlay, I now keep my iPhone inside the center console, plugged into a lightning cable and powering the CarPlay from a place where I can’t even access the phone, making things safer to boot.

With all of this success, Apple still has a ways to go and I hope they continue to put resources into making the best possible CarPlay they can. I believe number one on their priority list should be the ability to use third-party navigation apps. Ford is working with Waze on that now but I think it’s in Apple’s best interest to make that as easy as possible for everyone, including Google. Maps.

Announcing the iPhone Field Guide

Today I’m pleased to announce my latest MacSparky Field Guide is available for purchase from the iBooks Store, The iPhone Field Guide.

I’ve been working on this book for a long time and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

With the iPhone Field Guide, you’ll learn to get the most from your iPhone with this media-rich book that is sometimes user guide, sometimes opinionated app recommendations, and sometimes iPhone sensei. This book was built entirely in iBooks Author and includes all of the multimedia goodness including screenshots, photo galleries, and video screencasts all engineered to make you an iPhone power user. There are over 50 screencasts adding up to over two hours of video instruction, 450 pages, 44 chapters, and over 65,000 words to help you learn how to squeeze every bit of awesomeness from your iPhone.

The material is accessible to beginners and power users alike with a thoughtful, fun, and systematic approach to iPhone mastery. Moreover, this book is beautifully designed and a joy to read. This is the seventh book in the MacSparky Field Guide series.

The book looks great on the Mac and iPad but, because it is about the iPhone, there is a separate scrolling mode for the book making it fully consumable on your iPhone. The video screencasts are even formatted to display on your iPhone.

I’m offering the book at an introductory price of $20 but that is going to go up later so if you are interested, check it out now. I’m really proud of this book and I hope you dig it.

The (Red) iPhone

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The new Product (Red) iPhone looks pretty nice. I like the black bezel much better than last year’s version with the white bezel. Still, a few thoughts occur to me.

1. Why is this only on iPhone 8? It seems it would have been easy to make a red glass panel for the iPhone X, right?

2. Why in April after all the true believers bought their new phones months ago? I wish they would have released this back with the initial iPhone 8/X launch.

Someday I’d like to hear the story why Apple doesn’t do more iPhone colors in general. They used to regularly sale iPods with a lot more color options than they sell the iPhone and I always thought the iPhone would eventually get there, but after ten years, I’m assuming the lack of color options is a deliberate choice.

PDFpen Version 10

PDFpen for Mac continues to improve. Today Smile released version 10 with several new features:

Adds watermarks
Insert Headers & Footers
OCR multiple documents in batch (PDFpenPro only)
New Precision Edit tool selects, moves, resizes and deletes line art and text
Improves move & resize of images
Enhances page number styling
Adds larger Library item view
Prettier drawing colors
Adds context menu options
Various improvements and fixes

My favorite new feature is the watermark function. I am kind of particular about the typography in my watermarks (surprised, right?) and now I can import and create my Futura based all-caps watermarks to my heart’s content.

The app also got attractive new icons. Learn more about PDFpen 10 from Smile.

Finally, there’s a screencast from yours truly.

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The New iPad

Over the weekend I took a trip to the Apple Store to check out the new 9.7 inch $329 iPad. There is a lot to like about the new iPad, starting with price. It’s roughly half the cost of the 10.5 inch iPad Pro. For that price, you get an iPad that supports Apple Pencil, looks great,and is plenty fast. I tried to get it to drop frame rates, and it felt just as fast as my 10.5 inch iPad Pro. (I know that it is not but it still felt plenty fast.) I think, for most iPad users, the new 9.7 inch iPad is fine.

9to5 Mac has a postdetailing the differences and there are quite a few but having used one in person I can tell you for most people those differences won’t matter. Going forward, when friends and family ask me for a recommendation for an iPad, I’m going to point them at the new $329 iPad unless they’ve got a good reason to move to the pro. When you consider the rich assortment of software available for iPad plus the fact you can get a Bluetooth keyboard in the $30 range, the new iPad is a heck of a deal.

For those of you that are interested in the iPad Pro, I think we’ve officially entered the “don’t buy unless you must” zone. I expect a new iPad Pro shortly, probably with Face ID and more bells and whistles to distance it from the impressive new $329 iPad.

Mac Power Users 425: Web Browsers

Join us this week as we dive into the topic of browsers: the browsers we use on Mac and iOS, reasons to look at third-party browsers versus staying with Safari, tweaking your settings, our favorite add-ons and companions services, and more.

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The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Home Screens – Dr. Barrett Mosbacker

Some of my favorite home screens come from MacSparky readers. Dr. Barrett Mosbacker is one of those. So Barrett, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

For managing my personal and professional life my favorite apps are Spark, Fantastical, Things 3, GoodNotes, and DEVONthink. Spark and Fantastical are powerful but easy to use applications for managing my email and events. After being a long time OmniFocus Pro user I recently made the switch to Things 3. Both are exemplary apps for managing projects but I ultimately moved to Things 3 because I found myself spending less time fiddling with the application and more time getting work done. Things 3 is also an exquisitely designed app that is a pleasure to use.

I have been looking for the Holy Grail of applications for managing and integrating project and meeting notes, documents, and research. I finally found them in GoodNotes and DEVONthink. GoodNotes gives me the ability to use my iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil to take meeting notes in an unobtrusive manner. Because GoodNotes has accurate handwriting recognition (even for my horrible penmanship) I can export my meeting notes to DEVONthink. Later when I need to find these notes I can search for them in DEVONthink. I switched to DEVONthink after being a long time Evernote Business user. Although DEVONthink takes time to learn, its powerful features and integrated mobile app make it the ideal repository for all of my personal and professional notes, documents, and research.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I’m feeling a little guilty for saying so, but I don’t have one. Virtually all of my iPhone and iPad applications are for getting things done. The closest I come to a guilty pleasure is the Kindle app for my professional and pleasure reading. I may need to get a life! 🙂

What app makes you most productive?

Things 3. I manage a large number of complex projects involving my Senior Leadership Team as well as mundane personal tasks like reminding me to take the trash to the curb. For my purposes, Things 3 has the right balance of power, flexibility, and elegant GUI.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I am probably underutilizing MindNode. I do a lot of writing and speaking. Scrivener is my go to application for all writing—from short blog articles to essays and book projects. I also use it for drafting my speaking notes. I find myself vacillating between using MindNode and OmniOutliner when drafting my thoughts and outlines for writing or speaking projects. I would default more often to MindNode if it had true Apple Pencil support.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

I use my iPhone approximately once an hour through out the day beginning at 4:30am when its alarm goes off. I use the iPad all day throughout the day. I have Things 3 open on the iPad, which sits next to my MacBook Pro. This keeps my to-do list constantly in front of me so that I focus on what is most important. I grab the iPad and Apple Pencil whenever I have a meeting. I take my handwritten notes in GoodNotes and then export them to DEVONthink for future reference. Any to-do items arising from the meeting go into Things 3.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I use the Fantastical, Things 3, AccuWeather, The Calculator, and Deliveries widgets.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

It is difficult to identify favorite features but I suppose on the iPhone it would be the dictation application. I cannot type quickly and accurately using the on screen keyboard on the iPhone X so I rely heavily on dictation. Apple Pencil support is my favorite feature of the iPad Pro. I use it for taking notes, annotating PDFs, and jotting down ideas.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would enhance iCloud to have the feature sets of both DropBox and Google Docs and I would substantially increase the total free space available to iCloud, or at least substantially increase the space available at each price tier. I would like to make iCloud my default application for storing and sharing documents and collaboration. The way things stand now, I use iCloud to sync across my devices, DropBox for sharing documents with others, and Google Docs when I need robust collaboration. I would also substantially enhance the capability of Siri. Apple lead in this space but has since fallen behind Google and Amazon.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I have a Series 2 Apple watch. I use the Siri watch face as my default but I also use the Activity Face for my morning workout and for tracking my physical activity throughout the day.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I use a solid black wallpaper on my iPhone because it makes the app icons stand out without distraction. On my iPad I use a beautiful fall picture of the Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park.

Thanks Barrett.

Free Agents 44: Maybe You’ll Get a Real Job, with David Wain

You might not realize it, but creative professionals in the entertainment industry are also free agents. In this episode, we talk to writer/actor/director David Wain of Wet Hot American Summer and The State about his life as a free agent, from hitting MTV right out of college to the lean times that followed. Turns out that juggling a busy schedule, learning to say no, and not being able to plan vacations far in advance are all features of his line of work.

Guest Starring: David Wain

This episode of Free Agents is sponsored by:

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